Obit

by Victoria Chang

The night person had a name but was like a ghost who left letters on my lips. Couldn’t breathe, 2:33 a.m. Screaming, 3:30 a.m. Calm, 4:24 a.m. I got on all fours, tried to pick up the letters like a child at an egg hunt without a basket. But for every letter I picked up, another fell down, as if protesting the oversimplification of my mother’s dying. I wanted the night person to write in a language I could understand. Breathing unfolding, 2:33. Breathing in blades, 3:30. Breathing like an evening gown, 4:24.

The way grief is really about future absence. The way the future closes its offices when a mother dies. What’s left: a hole in the ground the size of violence.

It’s true, the grieving speak a different language.

The way our sadness is plural, but grief is singular.